Government approves salary cuts for state officials

The government has approved a proposal to decrease the salaries of state officials by five percent. The cuts affect the salaries of parliament deputies, ministers, and state prosecutors until 2014; the salaries of judges will be decreased only for 2011. The basic salaries of parliament deputies and senators should be roughly 52,000 crowns per month while the basic pay for ministers will drop to 107.000 crowns. Judges and prosecutors are protesting the cut. The Czech Constitutional Court recently overturned a four-percent reduction in the salaries of judges in the Czech Republic citing a previous verdict which declared that the salaries of judges had to be stable and could not be cut.